The man of experience
learns to rely upon Time as his helper. "Time and I against any
two," was a maxim of Cardinal Mazarin. Time has been described as
a beautifier and as a consoler; but it is also a teacher. It is
the food of experience, the soil of wisdom. It may be the friend
or the enemy of youth; and Time will sit beside the old as a
consoler or as a tormentor, according as it has been used or
misused, and the past life has been well or ill spent.
Time," says George Herbert, "is the rider that breaks youth." To
the young, how bright the new world looks!--how full of novelty,
of enjoyment, of pleasure! But as years pass, we find the world
to be a place of sorrow as well as of joy. As we proceed through
life, many dark vistas open upon us--of toil, suffering,
difficulty, perhaps misfortune and failure. Happy they who can
pass through and amidst such trials with a firm mind and pure
heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness, and standing erect
beneath even the heaviest burden!
A little youthful ardour is a great help in life, and is useful as
an energetic motive power. It is gradually cooled down by Time,
no matter how glowing it has been, while it is trained and subdued
by experience. But it is a healthy and hopeful indication of
character,--to be encouraged in a right direction, and not to be
sneered down and repressed. It is a sign of a vigorous unselfish
nature, as egotism is of a narrow and selfish one; and to begin
life with egotism and self-sufficiency is fatal to all breadth and
vigour of character.
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